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brood in honey supers?

I have two hives...each wth large supers…today I noticed that there is brood in the top super. Do I need a queen excluder? I keep getting mixed review on those…but how else can I keep brood out of the honey supers? Thanks!

Re: brood in honey supers?

The only way to be certain that there is no Brood in your supers is to kill the Queen. A Queen excluder does work most of the time.
I would not worry about it. When you collect the frames for honey, just check for brood.
This is not hard, just work with them.
I would use an Excluder.

Re: brood in honey supers?

Yes I use an excluder. Once had a skinny queen slide through. I as many of us beeks have heard them call honey excluders. I read about this thing Im trying this year is to turn the excluder(plastic) a quater turn so it leaves an inch or so open at the end between the broodnest and the super for the foragers to go up and not through the excluder. Some go through the excluder still but most dont. The theory being that the queen wont go to the edge of the broodnest up to the super. So far it has worked. No brood in the super. CU Dave

Re: brood in honey supers?

I have two hives...each wth large supers
If your hives are double deeps you will have brood in the top box untile a honey flow back fills the upper brood area.
Please inform me about the configuration of the hives.
When my bees are drawing out foundation I want the queen to lay brood in the combs because it make them tougher for honey extraction.
I know some good sized operations that go through a yard and pull up all of the capped honey and place it above an excluder so that when they pull the honey crop it's 100% honey and 0 % brood.
Ernie

Re: brood in honey supers?

I know some good sized operations that go through a yard and pull up all of the capped honey and place it above an excluder so that when they pull the honey crop it's 100% honey and 0 % brood.
Ernie

Why waste the time? When we pull supers if there is a frame or two of brood in the supers we just pull them and throw them in an empty super. We pull the whole yard and before we leave we put that super on the weakest hive to boost it. Works great, no brood in the honey and the weak hive gets a huge surge to strengthen it. I can't imagine pulling supers shaking bees to get them down, placing a queen excluder and then replacing your supers...who has that kind of time and that many excluders?

Re: brood in honey supers?

Hello, Olive. I see you have received plenty of responses to your question. Beekeeping can be a bit confusing sometimes. I lay in bed at night worrying if I'm doing the right thing some nights. A queen excluder would be a great investment. If you're wondering what to do about the brood in the honey supers, you can leave them where they are. The workers will take care of them where ever they are, so you don't need to move them down. I hope this helps.

Re: brood in honey supers?

i just put my excluder between 2nd and 3rd supers. there is a few brood up there in my honey super but they should hatch out in a few days and vacate the area and in a few weeks ill have my first capped super ready to extract! (yes the queen is on the right side)

Re: brood in honey supers?

I remember a cartoon I saw once of a IRS agent talking to a taxpayer saying "Stop calling it YOUR money!!!" I think the whole problem of brood in the "honey supers" is the concept of honey supers... it's all just hive. By fall they queen will have moved down toward the bottom and you can take off the "supers" as they will now be full of the honey that forced her down...